


why don’t you tell me if you find that deeper meaning

by griners



Series: The wounds we heal and the ones we do not [4]
Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: 8x01 through 8x04, F/M, also hurt!ressler if too enticing to pass up on, i would say PWP but angst counts as plot right?, listen the show was aNGSTY but i need more angst to live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29881146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griners/pseuds/griners
Summary: He goes to sleep that night with his phone next to him on the pillow, instead of his gun. He thinks, somewhere between sleeping and dreaming, that if she calls again, the phone might be the most damaging of the two. Or: Ressler learns the worst things are also the most beautiful.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen & Donald Ressler, Elizabeth Keen/Donald Ressler
Series: The wounds we heal and the ones we do not [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148087
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	why don’t you tell me if you find that deeper meaning

**Author's Note:**

> am i regretting putting myself through this? yes. did i need a more detailed description of what happened after *breathes deeply* "Will you let me do that?" yes, yes i most definitely did. was the show explicit enough? yes. did i need more explicit? yes.  
> that's it. that's all I've got. drop a comment if you liked this last part, drop a prompt if you're feelings inspired, and may the keenler shipper gods be with you

He faults himself, naturally. His grandfather used to say the moment you hope for the most is always the most disappointing, and he realizes, now, with a glass of whisky in hand and his empty holster in the other, that he couldn’t have said anything truer.

He downs the glass in hopes of feeling something other than the burn as it grazes his throat, something like an all-encompassing explosion that could squash the misery he seems to be nurturing at the moment. _Self pity doesn’t suit you_ , he thinks, having put to bed any self-destruction attempts since his younger days as an agent (and once after (the sobriety medal in his wallet reminds him)), but the holster remains empty, and he somehow feels emptier still.

He goes to sleep that night with his phone next to him on the pillow, instead of his gun. He thinks, somewhere between sleeping and dreaming, that if she calls again, the phone might be the most damaging of the two.

.

_Will you let me do that_ , she asks, and he wants to say, _No._ He wants to say _You don’t get to ask me anything after taking my gun. After taking me. Haven’t I given you enough? (Am I not enough?)_. He doesn’t ask this, and he doesn’t speak either, because there is nothing else to be said. He wouldn’t have opened the door if he hadn’t intended on helping her, and he suspects she is taking advantage of that knowledge, too.

He doesn’t have it in him to care.

“Beer’s in the fridge.” He offers dismissively, grasping at the last ounce of self-respect. “Have you eaten?”

“Ressler-“

“I already ate but I can order something for you if you want.”

She sighs. “Ressler-“

“Pizza?”

“Ressler!” she breathes, forcefully now, and he turns to her much like she were about to attack, legs spread and rooted and arms crossing tightly over his chest. She looks between them and finds, miserably, that she was right after all – they _had_ come all this way just to get back where they started. Alert eyes, suspicious heads, closed hearts. (Maybe).

“What, Keen?” he asks back, gaze fixed on a spot above her left shoulder. “I’m trying to help. Is this not what you need?”

She bristles at the sarcasm dripping from his voice, but is unable to blame him. Liz takes a deep breath and makes sure she has his full attention before softening her tone as she settles into honesty. “I need you, not your help.”

“You had me.”

“And I used that,” she says before he can. His face remains impassive against the words falling from her lips. She wonders how he can stand being so far away in every sense of the word, and realizes this is what she has been doing, too. It hurts, she finds. “But that doesn’t erase what I… what we- I mean- it doesn’t erase what it _was_.” She stammers, half reluctance and half resolve, and as she looks into his eyes, she sees neither.

He relaxes his gaze on her, despite knowing he shouldn’t, but keeps his face clear of all other emotion. “I understand why you did it, and I’m not mad at you. Just don’t expect me to fall for it again.” _And yet here he is. Here she is._

“You weren’t falling into anything,” she pleads, taking a step further. “You know that. You have to know that.”

“Do I?” he asks simply as she walks closer, his hands moving to grip the counter behind him hard, steadying himself. “The way I see it, you used whatever you thought I may or may not have felt about you to your advantage. And no matter how much I sympathize with your pain, Keen – which I do – there are no excuses for that. Not in my book.” He knows the book has about 5 extra chapters since he has gotten to know, care and love for Elizabeth Keen, but this may not be the best time to go over that.

Her eyes dance with his, a battle of wills in the delicate cast of warm yellow light and she has never, ever wanted this, she realizes. She wanted to disappear, not regret. She wanted to cut ties, not tie them tighter into blind knots. She wants to walk back to her car and drive to her motel room and forget she knows how he feels and how she feels and what she has done and what she has done to _him_. She can’t.

“You’re right.” She nods, the corner of her mouth tilting lightly. Her eyes shine more than she means to. “And I’m not asking for you to forgive me. I’m just asking for you to believe me.”

 _Always asking_ , something inside him says, but she’s looking at his lips now and everything else feels drowned out. “What do I need to believe?”

He knows, of course. Could have written an entire book on how the next few seconds would play out, feigned innocence be damned. She reaches up with her hand and ghosts it over the cuts on his cheek, the grazes on his neck, the deeper cut on his arm covered by heavy bandaging, and her other hand settles somewhere in his chest, closer to his heart and farther from his head.

“What do I need to believe, Liz?” he asks again, murmuring this time, and she takes one last look at the damage she has caused and, before she can regret it, much like the drive over here, she closes her eyes and _does_.

Her lips are softer now than they were weeks ago, and he groans in realization that he’s allowed to, now - that he opened the door for this opportunity and isn’t simply walking into it unknowing, unwitting. He presses her fully into him until his hands burn bruises into her skin, because pain seems to be the only way they communicate, these days. His shirt is tossed and her coat follows, gasps and moans and something pressing at their chests until there is little air left to breathe. She clings to him as he hoists her up and carries her to his room, not willing to leave her to walk for herself in crippling fear that this is all much too fiddle and she will turn around and walk away, right through his front door. Right from his life.

Something claws incessantly at Ressler’s throat as he lies her on his bed, her body trapped beneath his and his heart trapped beneath hers. His eyes widen as he takes her in, clad in only her underwear and abandon in her features, and _god. Why is everything bad this beautiful._

“Ress…” she mumbles as he kisses her, a desperate attempt at silencing his wild, wild heartbeat and tight, tight chest. She lays a hand over it ( _his heart? his chest?_ ) and turns them, settling on his hips as he chokes on the unexpected friction. She wants to gloat and smile widely but this is more than that, she knows. She knows. “Let me,” Liz asks, moving down to kiss him again. He isn’t quite sure what she’s asking of him now, but he doesn’t feel very in control of himself and decides maybe, this time, it will be for the best to appease her request. (he will never learn.)

Liz presses her lips softly on his, then less softly on his jaw, one of his cuts, his neck. She licks a pattern there that has him grasping her waist (in warning? in despair?) and then moves down, spreading kisses across his upper body and then his abdomen, lingering to fan her lips over a scar from long ago.

He tries not to lose his mind too much as she looks up and changes gears, hands moving to spread softly over his bandaged arm. She pauses here, breathes shakily, grazes her fingers over the edges of the tape and then kisses the bare skin between the cuts, fingers now shaking too, eyes pooling with some unknown, impossible emotion. She feels his hands move into her hair and pull her farther up, feels him breathe _it’s okay_ against her lips and wishes she knew which of them he was talking about.

“It’s okay, Liz,” he assures as he kisses her, can’t stop kissing her, wraps his arms around her and holds her with what force he can muster. She wipes her eyes and grins shyly, lays one last kiss on his lips before growing determined and kicking off his boxers, her underwear, and finally, _finally_ , communicating more than just pain.

A few minutes afterwards, when there is sweat and contentment etched across their faces, when the uneasy feeling on his chest returns, he can’t help – “I don’t want you to go.”

She curls further into him, not sure what she wants to escape from.

.

It’s 2:57 a.m. when Liz hears a noise at the window. Her body is alert and dreading the worst before she is even fully awake, and she carefully retracts herself from under Ressler’s arm as she grabs the gun from his nightstand, listen intently, closes the door to the room and enters the living room.

The feeling of alert soon passes as she approaches the window. A big, bright blue bird is hopping loudly in the pavement in search for something, busily calling out for someone as it continues its confused path across the road. She feels like laughing at herself, the gun in her hand feeling so out of place, and rubs one hand over her tired, tired eyes, thinking maybe you can’t really erase all the bad with one good.

She looks back at the door. It would be so easy now – to grab her clothes, grab her purse, shut the door, walk away. Easy feels so far from easy, she thinks.

When she reenters the room with a glass of water in hand, she catches Ressler sitting straight up, alarm on his face as he touches the sheets beside him. He turns when he hears her enter, and she knows he thought the same. _It would be so easy._

“You didn’t go.” He says dumbly, bewildered. She leans against the doorframe and smiles.

“No.” she replies. Some things are harder than they should be.

.

It’s 4:13 a.m. when he wakes up with a softness moving across his leg. His hand is slightly numb from laying still under her hip for the last hour, and his arm lays across her thin frame, half needing to touch her and half afraid she will stop touching him. He twitches under the soft caress again, realizes he has to open his eyes and leave this wonderful, wonderful cocoon of a dream to understand what is happening. When he does, slowly, he finds Liz moving her fingers up and down his left leg, her face solemn and sadder than before. He follows her eyes and realizes she has been stroking the nasty scar left there years ago from the Anslo Garrick altercation, and his arm tightens around her back reflexively.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, you know.” He offers, unsure what to say to break the unwavering intimacy of her touch. She jumps slightly in his arms, not expecting him to be awake, and looks up into his sleepy eyes. It steals her breath, for a second, how this man can be so, so beautiful. So, so good.

Liz doesn’t answer, unsure what to say to convey everything she is feeling at the moment. Her hand halters and spreads over the scar, entrapping it in the warmth of her palm, and she gently moves down until she is at eye level with it. She doesn’t know why she does it, doesn’t even know what she means to do, but she presses her lips to the beginning, the middle and the end of the scar. He breathes deeply, combs his fingers through her hair as she continues to move her lips around the marks there, and moves his other hand to his chest in hopes of smoothing down the flame vigorously growing there.

“Liz?” he asks, shakily, a warning. She doesn’t stop, pushing slightly at his hip until he rolls on his back, his breath leaving him in puffs now, her mouth moving up and up until he moans raggedly. “You don’t have to-“

But she already is, licking her way up and down until he is unmistakably hard and ready to break her will a little further. She lets him hang around the edge for a while, his groans the only sound in the quiet night, and the sight of him like this, open and raw and lit only by moonlight, breaks her altogether.

He finishes almost viciously in her mouth, his breathing ragged and one hand buried in her hair, pulling hard, and she thinks, _god. (how do I forget this?)_

.

At 5:51 a.m., it is her who wakes up from a touch. They moved countless times during the night, and her face is now pressed against Ressler’s chest with one leg over his hip, the other tangled between his and the sheets. She opens her eyes to the feel of him stroking her back, slowly, slowly, as if afraid the movement could disturb the calmness around them.

She inhales deeply before speaking, afraid of the same thing. “It’s almost time to go.”

“Not yet,” he answers, hand moving slower even. “The sun hasn’t come up yet.”

“I didn’t know that was the rule.” She laughs slightly, nervously. He moves closer to her and this thing they do, this dance of avoidance around what neither wants to admit, she doesn’t know if she hates it or if it’s what’s saving them. “I need water,” she rasps, suddenly drowning in the dryness of her throat.

“Hmm,” he murmurs, smiling against her hair. “I’ll get it for you in a second.”

He never does.

.

He makes her toast and eggs as she gets ready in his room. He tries putting on a shirt when the eggs spray and burn him, but his arm is sore and hurting and it’s not like clothes could cover him up from her, anyway. Not now. He taps his fingers against the counter as the smell of warm bread fills his nostrils, his breathing evening out at last.

Liz wraps her arms around him from the back, and Ressler shivers at the contact in broad daylight. He thinks, idly, that it was easier in the shadows. “Don’t turn around.”

“Don’t worry Liz, I’ve seen you with worse hair.” He jokes, hands coming to settle against hers. She laughs, the sound rumbling across his back, her hair disheveled and desperately needing a brush after their last round.

“Yeah, the blonde was much worse than this, wasn’t it?” she cackles back, letting her forehead fall against him. He doesn’t answer this, instead tightens his hands on hers, knows she needs to say something else and doesn’t have the heart to stop her. Or rather, has a little too much heart. “I appreciate the breakfast, but I… I –“ she hugs him closer. “I have to go. And I don’t want to look you in the eyes when I do.”

“Afraid you’ll change your mind?”

“Yes.” She breathes, before she can filter it with a lie. He remains immobile. “And I can’t do that.”

He nods at this, pats her hands twice, gently, and releases her arms. Gradually, she retracts from him, whispers something he would rather not acknowledge, and the sound of the door closing feels like a detonation in his ears.

It takes him a minute to turn, take in his empty apartment. He thinks about how simple it would be to chalk this up to a dream, with no evidence left behind to prove otherwise (unless, maybe, a rumpled bed and a foreign, lingering scent). He thinks about how pain-free it would be to forget this, make his bed, take a shower, holster his gun and head off to work as if his world hadn’t sifted alongside himself.

He thinks about this as he eats his toast, puts on his shirt, his tie, his jacket. As he drives to the post-office in the midst of morning traffic and blaring horns and all he hears is her, her breaths and moans and silent tears. He goes through the day and later, when he returns home, he closes the door twice, if only to get the sound through his head. He looks around, but she is nowhere to be seen.

 _She’s gone_ , he thinks, feels. He closes the door one more time, and doesn’t sleep with his phone anymore.

_This time I have to mean it._


End file.
